


Masters of Strings

by TheWorkoftheHeart



Series: Rockstar AU [3]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Brotherly Angst, Brotherly Bonding, Childhood Memories, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Guitars, Rockstar AU, but not like. big time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:00:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26299804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWorkoftheHeart/pseuds/TheWorkoftheHeart
Summary: If there was one thing Donquixote Rosinante remembered about his childhood, it was his father’s guitar.
Relationships: Donquixote Doflamingo & Donquixote "Corazon" Rosinante
Series: Rockstar AU [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1897279
Comments: 12
Kudos: 13





	Masters of Strings

If there was one thing Donquixote Rosinante remembered about his childhood, it was his father’s guitar. 

As a boy, Rosinante would stare at it, hanging in the corridor of a house too big for them, standing solitary in a glass-wood case, a gentle coating of dust keeping the glass from reflecting. The opening handle was never dusty, though; his father would take it out every day, sitting in the gardens and strumming absentmindedly as his mother tended to a bed of flowers near the gates. Rosinante and his brother were always transfixed on the sound, how the echoing chamber in its gut played soft, bittersweet tones as though singing a lyric-less melody. He would sit on the concrete bench and his brother would clamber beside him and peek over his shoulder to watch their father play. His fingers never played in methodical strums, but rather intricate picks and strokes; he seemed to know to play as well as the backs of his hands. 

The guitar was the one good thing that followed them. In late evenings, as the moon shone its light through tall windows, it would play amongst the crackles of fire in the hearth. In spring, its lively song could be found beside new pink buds on his mother’s rose bush, accompanied by a love song from his father to the woman he married ( _”Eres la rosa que me da calor, eres el sueño de mi soledad...”_ — the song’s lyrics were hazy, but Rosinante remembered its melody). In broken back alleys, its song would be hopeful, scarred fingers playing despite how red the strings would stain. 

At the foot of his bed, it was sweet, coddling, cradling; a song always there to lull Rosinante into sleep. 

After their father died, though, the guitar was swept away. Rosinante could remember its strings, stained crimson, but ever sturdy— he’d never seen his father break a string, and it was something he both envied and admired. He’d find himself tapping the melodies in his office, but he was never able to find the songs his father played. Perhaps they had never been songs at all. 

When he returned home to his brother, a guitar awaited him. It was worn, tired, but the sound it made was unlike anything he’d ever heard; it echoed through the hollow chamber with thunderous enthusiasm, the strings sliding under his fingers as easily as the wrinkles on his father’s face when he smiled, though that smile was something Rosinante longed to remember. 

For some reason, this guitar seemed to be the only thing the two brothers could truly bond over. Doflamingo, scheming and vengeful, loved to weave a web through the underbelly of the city, the only melody being that of coins tumbling together in his hands before he stowed them away. 

“I don’t know how Father was able to create a mastermind like me,” Doflamingo would say, a glass of blood-red wine twinkling between his fingers. 

“Nor do I know how he created a monster like you,” Rosinante would reply, curling a new string into place on the neck of the acoustic in his lap. Doflamingo would growl some bitter reply, but would let his words be drowned out as Rosinante took instead to strumming a tune, listening for notes he recalled from his early memories. 

That guitar was the only thing keeping the net of their brotherhood from falling apart. Where its rope would fail, too weak to sustain the pressure that came with their give and take, a string would weave into place; each note, each melody, defining a single moment that Rosinante could finally recognize the two eyes that watched from behind bright red glasses. Where there was a fight, there was a string— a chord played in just a way that it would make his brother listen closer; where there was misunderstanding, there was a melody, one that sang of pink roses and red strings and dark childhood bedrooms. 

Where Doflamingo was a master of weaving his men to do his bidding, Rosinante was a master of weaving pathways that played like melodies. 

He supposed they were both the masters of strings.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to try and encapsulate the Donquixote’s relationship by using Rosinante’s guitar— as a staple of their childhood, it’s the one thing the two of them can truly bond over, even if it’s just in wordless silence. This came to me at 4 in the morning, so apologies for any mistakes.
> 
> If you like this, please follow me on Twitter at @hanahana_no__mi! 
> 
> Comments and kudos are appreciated! Thank you so much!


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